


Split

by pallidiflora



Series: Accomplice [2]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Bad Ending, M/M, Overheard Sex, Sequel, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 16:47:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallidiflora/pseuds/pallidiflora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adachi's been living with the Dojimas for five months now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Split

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to Entrench; as such, set after P4: Golden's accomplice ending. The quote from Souji's math textbook is taken from an online textbook called Everything Maths from Siyavula—I have no idea what it means, to be quite honest.

Adachi's been living with the Dojimas for five months now. Souji's first instinct is to say _together_ , as in, _he and Dojima have been together for five months_ , but _together_ implies something mutual, and how can it be when Dojima is still in the dark? How can it be when he's in love (or whatever else—lust, or perhaps nostalgia) with a cardboard cut-out?

Besides, this isn't true anyway—they've been together for longer than that, longer than Souji probably even knows.

That might be the worst part.

* * *

He returns to Inaba now more out of a sense of duty than anything, not to protect everyone from the nebulous shifting fog but from something more concrete, more purposeful. Logically he knows Adachi is probably done with whatever grandstanding he had planned (or hadn't, for that matter—which is worse?) and has now moved on to more banal entertainments, a sort of emotional capture-the-flag.

Or maybe not. Maybe he wants a normal life and has taken what he can get—free housing and someone to wash his socks, in other words. Or maybe he really does love Dojima, maybe his chest swells when he listens to him gargling with mouthwash in the morning, when he catches sight of his long hairy toes poking out from under the covers. Maybe he wants them all to be a family, Nanako just like his own daughter, helping her with her multiplication tables, proudly taping her drawings to the fridge.

Souji hates this thought most of all, because if it's true then what can he do? He doubts it though, mostly because he has to.

* * *

When he returns this time things are nearly the same, meaning Adachi's detritrus—even more than there was at first—is still scattered flotsam-like throughout the house, the few possessions he brought from his tiny apartment: an ancient hot plate ringed with rust, a floor lamp and a creaky armchair stuffed into the corner of Dojima's (their) room, a box of old comic books that lies unpacked next to the kitchen hutch.

Souji has taken to cataloguing things in this way, as if documenting the spread of a terminal illness.

The main difference this time is that two pictures have been added to the shelf behind the couch. The first is a snapshot of his uncle and Nanako at the beach with his aunt, in a modest one-piece and with her hair unbound. He suspects this was packed away in a box for the last five or so years, as he's never seen it; the frame is dotted here and there with rough brown spots as though exposed to damp.

The second is a recent photo, probably taken in the last few months, of Nanako and Dojima on a picnic eating watermelons, pinky-coloured juice haloes around their mouths; next to them is Adachi, with an arm slung around Nanako and a watermelon seed stuck to his cheek.

This seems worse to him than any of the other scent-marking, fence-staking behaviour, the magazines left on the coffee table, the undershirts left on the bedroom floor. What's next, he wonders: goofy mixtapes, adopting a stray cat together? It's too ridiculous to imagine, like something out of a soppy novel, but there is the picture nonetheless, sitting there in the open like the first sign of a rash.

* * *

Nanako is at a friends' tonight; she's been going out like this more often now that Adachi's around to look after the house. His cleaning is shoddy at best (the tub has a permanent ring around it now, he never spots the sticky rings of beer on the counter until they have solidified into glue) and he can't cook worth a damn, but Dojima feels assured that burglars will be deterred as long as the lights are on and someone is inside.

Dojima is home tonight too, though, and has been languishing upstairs in the bath for almost an hour while Adachi watches television and Souji does summer homework at the kitchen table. Normally he would do it in the spare room (or is it Adachi's room still?), again where he's sleeping, but the table isn't big enough to spread out all his charts and papers and textbooks. He mollifies himself with the thought that this way he can keep watch—absurd, as though Adachi's suddenly going to leap up and set fire to the couch.

For awhile there is only relative silence, the scratching of a pen, sound effects from Adachi's sentai show, finally the ponderous _glug-glug_ of the bathtub draining from the second floor. During a commercial break Adachi shuffles to the fridge for a Chu-hi, lemon flavour, which Souji happens to know no one likes as much as beer. Currently though it's all they have.

He flops back onto the couch and cracks it open.

"Y'know, I really like living here," he says, and puts his feet up on the coffee table. The sight of this, his half-concealed feet in their holey grey socks, makes Souji's guts roil. "It never would've happened without you, so I guess I've gotta thank you."

Souji bows his head and continues writing down his calculations, pen pressing so hard it nearly tears his notepaper.

"Nothin' to say to that, huh? Well, some people just don't like to be thanked, I get it. Funny though, I figured you were the type to soak up praise, all that goody-two-shoe-ing around town you did. Are my thanks not good enough for you?"

Souji chances a quick look up; Adachi is watching him with a mild expression, legs crossed neatly at the ankles. If it weren't for his big toes poking out of his socks, he would look almost put-together, almost composed.

Souji looks away first, and flips to the next page in his textbook, absorbing nothing, seeing nothing.

"Whatever," Adachi laughs, slurping at his drink. "Honestly though, the thing I've gotta thank you for most for is my sex life."

 _Thus the coordinates of L are (cosβ;sinβ). In the same way as above, we can see that the coordinates of K are (cosα;sinα)._ Souji works at concentrating on this, the way one would work at digging a hole with a spoon: shoving, forcing. It's no use, though, his mind skims over the words like an insect over a pond.

"Sometimes when Nanako-chan's off on her little play-dates Dojima-san lets me tie him up," he continues. "Nothin' too freaky, but I think he might get off on pain—he says it's a trust thing, but I dunno. I think he feels like he needs to be punished for—"

Silently, in a single motion, Souji rises from his chair, and, keeping his gaze level with the floor, strides into the living room.

"Hey, whoa, no need to get all pissed off," he says, holding up his free hand in defense. "I'm just saying how much I appreciate it, that's all, you did me a favour and now I'm getting my dick sucked, there's nothing to get mad about—"

Souji stands in front of him only a moment, just enough to take in the photograph behind him—his doppelganger, his phantom other half, printed on polyester film, serene, frozen, unreal—before he grabs him by the shirtfront and throws him to the floor. Before Adachi has time to react beyond a yelp, Souji is straddling him; he takes hold of his shirt in one hand and, forming his other into a fist—solid like a brick, thumb tight to his fingers—punches Adachi square on the jaw. Adachi begins to laugh, almost silently.

Beyond the correct punching technique (something he remembers from Kanji) there's no finesse, only pummelling every inch of Adachi's face he can reach: nose, eyes, chin, jaw, cheeks, and most of all his laughing mouth. His hand has begun to ache, the skin on his middle knuckle has split open, but he can't stop; beneath him Adachi writhes, kicking his legs, pushing with his arms, but he's like a burlap sack full of bones, Souji is stronger. Besides, to fight back in earnest (even if Souji was, in schoolyard terms, the one who started it) would earn him Dojima's suspicion, so he merely tries to get away, to be, as always, the ragdoll-bodied innocent.

"Stop," he's begun shouting, "stop, cut it out—" and Dojima comes thundering down the stairs, trailing a shampoo-smell behind him.

He grabs a fistful of Souji's shirt and hauls him away; Adachi looks shellshocked now, blood streaming from his nose into his half-open mouth, staining his teeth patchy orange. Souji shakes out his right hand; the flesh over his knuckles feels like tenderized meat.

"What the _fuck_ is the matter with you?" Dojima permits himself this unusual _fuck_ because Nanako isn't around. He turns Souji around and balls his shirtcollar in his fist; Souji goes limp in his grip and Dojima gives him two hard shakes, as though he's expecting coins to come out. Or pills, or tablets—something to explain this sudden outburst, maybe, in terms a cop could understand.

"Dojima-san, it's okay—" Adachi begins through a mouthful of blood, some of it drooling down his chin, soaking his shirt.

"It is _not_ okay!" He lets him go with a shove. "Go up to your room, I'll be in to have a talk with you in a minute."

As Souji turns to retreat upstairs, legs trembling, his uncle guides Adachi into the kitchen, a hand on his back; he spits into the sink, the blood makes a dull metallic thud.

* * *

Dojima enters his room without knocking some ten minutes later, holding a towel and a tied plastic bag full of old freezer-burnt soybeans.

"Here," he says, settling onto the couch opposite him, "for your hand."

Souji takes it and molds it to his knuckles; the ice is soothing.

"Now just what the hell was that all about?" His voice has softened, he seems more bewildered than angry now.

Souji doesn't offer an explanation, because what can he say? _He talked about your sex life and I snapped? He's a murderer and almost got your only daughter killed and I thought protecting him was a good idea at the time?_

"Look, you've been... weird about this whole... _thing_ ever since you found out. What's the matter?"

Dojima sounds so concerned, his face is so open, so sincere and devoid of ulterior motives; Souji considers for a moment just telling him the truth.

"I'm sorry," is what he finally says. "I don't know what came over me."

The frozen beans have begun melting, the condensation seeps through the towel and stings his split skin.

"He's gonna need to get that shirt dry cleaned," Dojima adds as a distracted afterthought. "I think you ought to be the one to pay for it."

Leave it to him to think of the practical, the essential, the bottom line. The bottom line in this case is five hundred yen, which Souji digs clumsily out of his pocket with his good hand.

Dojima takes it and, after a pause, says, "maybe you ought to lie down for awhile," before turning to leave.

Is he concerned, or is this a more diplomatic way of telling him he's grounded? It doesn't matter either way. The money was nothing, but he knows he'll have to pay in some other way sooner or later.

* * *

And sooner it is. He stays in his room the rest of the night, watching an old VHS on his tiny TV and skimming through his math textbook; he has given up on doing real homework, he can barely hold a pen. Adachi and Dojima are quiet downstairs, all he hears is the flat one-note murmur of the TV, human voices merging with it, becoming indistinct. They come up the stairs together and Souji turns off his light, lying fully clothed on top of his futon; as they pass by his door he can hear his uncle saying, gruff, over-fond, "you sure you're alright?"

"Don't worry about me, Dojima-san."

Except for his visit earlier in the summer they are prudent not to make much noise, or else don't fuck at all. However tonight they must assume he's asleep, they know he is a heavy sleeper; with that and with Nanako gone it must be like it is when they're alone. All that blood must have stirred something in Adachi, even if it was his own, he can hear him on the other side of the wall, panting, moaning, rustling, eager as a teenager; that must be the closest he's gotten to excitement nowadays aside from—Souji can't even think of it, whatever he does with Dojima, whatever he's doing now. As for his uncle it must have stirred something in him too: the need for tenderness, to protect.

"I don't want to hurt you," he says, and Adachi says, "I'm fine, really," jovial but with an edge of vulnerability; Souji can practically see his uncle's heart contracting in his chest, in reality he's just a teddy bear, a big softie—things an office lady might say about him, but true.

Souji can hear the rhythmic slap of wet skin through the wall, he listens as though drained of blood, listless; Adachi is getting noisier, _don't stop, right there,_ absolutely candid, unfeigned like nowhere else.

At last he rolls over and covers his head with his pillow, though, when Adachi gasps _I love you, I love you._


End file.
